Excerpted from The Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy, Boston: Richardson & Lord, 1825, pp. 76-78

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By the General Rights of
Mankind, I mean the rights which belong to the species
collectively, the original stock, as I may say, which they have
since distributed among themselves. These are,

I. A right to the fruits
or vegetable produce of the earth.

The insensible parts of
the creation are incapable of injury; and it is nugatory to
inquire into the right, where the use can be attended with no
injury. But it may be worth observing, for the sake of an
inference which will appear below, that, as God has created us
with a want and desire of food, and provided things suited by
their nature to sustain and satisfy us, we may fairly presume,
that he intended we should apply them to that purpose.

II. A right to the flesh
of animals.

This is a very different
claim from the former. Some excuse seems necessary for the pain
and loss which we occasion to brutes, by restraining them of their
liberty, mutilating their bodies, and at last putting an end to
their lives, which we suppose to be their all, for our pleasure or
conveniency.

The reasons alleged in
vindication of this practice, are the following: that the several
species of brutes being created to prey upon one another, affords
a kind of analogy to prove that the human species were intended to
feed upon them; that, if let alone, they would overrun the earth,
and exclude mankind from the occupation of it; that they are
requited for what they suffer at our hands, by our care and
protection.

Upon which reasons I would
observe, that the analogy contended for is extremely lame;
since brutes have no power to support life by any other means, and
since we have; for the whole human species might subsist entirely
upon fruit, pulse, herbs, and roots, as many tribes of Hindoos
actually do. The two other reasons may be valid reasons, as far as
they go; for, no doubt, if man had been supported entirely by
vegetable food, a great part of those animals which die to furnish
his table, would never have lived: but they by no means justify
our right over the lives of brutes to the extent in which we
exercise it. What danger is there, for instance, of fish
interfering with us, in the use of their element? Or what do we
contribute to their support or preservation?

It seems to me, that it
would be difficult to defend this right by any arguments which the
light and order of nature afford; and that we are beholden for it
to the permission recorded in Scripture, Gen. ix. 1,2,3: "And God
blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful and
multiply, and replenish the earth: and the fear of you, and the
dread of you, shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon
every fowl of the air, and upon all that moveth upon the earth,
and upon all the fishes of the sea; into your hand are they
delivered: Every moving think shall be meat for you; even as the
green herb, have I given you all things." To Adam and his
posterity had been granted, at the creation, "every green herb for
meat," and nothing more. In the last clause of the passage now
produced, the old grant is recited, and extended to the flesh of
animals: "even as the green herb, have I give you all things." But
this was not till after the flood; the inhabitants of the
antediluvian world had therefore no such permission, that we know
of. Whether they actually refrained from the flesh of animals, is
another question. Abel, we read, was a keeper of sheep; and for
what purpose he kept them, but for food, is difficult to say
(unless it were for sacrifices). Might not, however, some of the
stricter sects among the antediluvians be scrupulous as to this
point? And might not Noah and his family be of this description?
For it is not probable that God would publish a permission, to
authorize a practice which had never been disputed.

Wanton, and, what is
worse, studied cruelty to brutes, is certainly wrong, as coming
within none of these reasons.